Defence Secretary Liam Fox was fighting for his political career today as the
row over his working relationship with a close friend deepened.

Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy has written to the Prime Minister calling for an independent investigation into the allegations surrounding Dr Fox claiming there are "significant shortcomings in the scope of the inquiry" that is currently being staged.

A series of allegations surfaced this weekend over the unusual involvement of Adam Werritty in brokering meetings for Dr Fox, as well as the access he enjoyed to government despite having no formal parliamentary or Whitehall role.

It adds: "This is a totally inadequate response to the scale and nature of the charges that the Secretary of State now faces.

"To arrive at a meaningful judgment on whether the ministerial code has been breached it is necessary to assess all the issues that have been raised.

"As you will know, the 2010 ministerial code states explicitly that it is not the role of officials to enforce the code and it is therefore inappropriate for the Permanent Secretary to undertake this role.

"The code states that if there is an allegation about a breach then you as Prime Minister should refer this to the independent adviser on ministers' interests.

"This course of action is now clearly necessary and I urge you take it immediately.

"It is important that the breadth of this inquiry matches the severity of the accusations."

Mr Murphy is also demanding Dr Fox makes an emergency statement to the House of Commons on Monday to answer the claims.

Labour backbencher John Mann, who has submitted a series of parliamentary questions on the issue, has referred Dr Fox to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for allowing Mr Werritty to stay in his taxpayer-funded flat for free in 2002/3 and called for him to resign as an MP.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, she said: "It's not just the questions of national security and access to highly sensitive information, it's also the question of the probity in procurement.

"The defence department has masses, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of contracts, and there has to be absolute probity around that.

"There is now a further question about Dr Fox's integrity and the question of whether he answered truthfully and fully all the questions that have been put and so I don't think it is good enough for it just to be an investigation in his own department.

"If there is a question of a breach of the ministerial code, that has to be looked at under the Prime Minister's leadership by the Cabinet Office and I think we need a full statement on Monday."

She added: "People expect secretaries of state to tell the truth, that is the absolute bottom line."

Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, who supported Dr Fox in his bid to become Conservative leader in 2005, told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend he thought the Defence Secretary could survive in the Cabinet.

He said: "First of all can I say that I have found Liam Fox to be a man of extraordinarily high work ethic.

"He is a very hard-working MP and secretary of state and he is someone who I have found to be an honourable and decent man and so I am very disappointed about the whirlwind that the media and others are looking at in obviously making it very difficult for him at the moment."

Mr Kawczynski added: "You have to take the man by his pedigree. This is somebody who has throughout his political career acted in an honest, decent, open and transparent way and I think that should be taken into context.

"I very much hope that he will survive, quite frankly. I think it would be a huge loss to the Government for him to go, yes."

Last night Dr Fox was forced to issue an embarrassing statement clarifying comments he made earlier about how a meeting in Dubai with a businessman had been arranged after emails emerged that appeared to contradict him.

Prime Minister David Cameron is poised to decide his fate tomorrow after ordering the head of the civil service to urgently report back on an internal investigation into whether Dr Fox's links to Adam Werritty, a former flatmate, breached ministerial guidelines.